


there's very little left of me (and it's never coming back)

by amatchforyourmadness



Series: but the words came from the fire [1]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Azula (Avatar)-centric, Can a stable adult please help my child, Crazy Azula (Avatar), Happy Azula (Avatar), Minor Mai/Zuko, Ozai (Avatar) Being a Terrible Parent, Ozai (Avatar) is an Asshole, POV Azula (Avatar), Protective Zuko (Avatar), Proud Member of the Azula Deserved Better Squad, Sane Azula (Avatar), Zuko is an Awkward Turtleduck, Zuko's Scar (Avatar), good brother zuko
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-08
Updated: 2020-08-19
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:42:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,883
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25734508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amatchforyourmadness/pseuds/amatchforyourmadness
Summary: 𝘈𝘻𝘶𝘭𝘢 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘢𝘭𝘸𝘢𝘺𝘴 𝘵𝘰𝘰 𝘨𝘰𝘰𝘥 𝘢𝘵 𝘭𝘪𝘷𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘶𝘱 𝘵𝘰 𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳'𝘴 𝘦𝘹𝘱𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴.𝘍𝘢𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩𝘵 𝘴𝘩𝘦 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘧𝘦𝘤𝘵, 𝘔𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩𝘵 𝘴𝘩𝘦 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘢 𝘮𝘰𝘯𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘳, 𝘎𝘳𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘧𝘢𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩𝘵 𝘴𝘩𝘦 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘢 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘥𝘪𝘨𝘺, 𝘜𝘯𝘤𝘭𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩𝘵 𝘴𝘩𝘦 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘤𝘳𝘢𝘻𝘺, 𝘡𝘶𝘻𝘶 𝘤𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘦𝘥 𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘢 𝘭𝘪𝘢𝘳.𝘚𝘩𝘦 𝘯𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳 𝘥𝘪𝘴𝘢𝘱𝘱𝘰𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘥.A self indulgent work about Azula and her point of view of the wedge between her and her brother and what being her father's daughter demanded of her.
Relationships: Azula & Iroh (Avatar), Azula & Mai (Avatar), Azula & Ozai (Avatar), Azula & Ty Lee (Avatar), Azula & Ursa (Avatar), Azula & Zuko (Avatar)
Series: but the words came from the fire [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1870078
Comments: 9
Kudos: 123





	1. a brother just like you

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from the song Be Nice To Me by The Front Bottoms, and inspiration taken from these lovely Tumblr posts:
> 
> https://fireladyursa.tumblr.com/post/621569269943205888/slow-deterioration-sl%C9%99%CA%8A-d%C9%AA%CB%8Ct%C9%AA%C9%99r%C9%AA%C9%99%CB%88re%C9%AA%CA%83n  
> https://threehoursfromtroy.tumblr.com/post/165833678368/fireroyals-sunlightmoonlightstarlight  
> https://eshusplayground.tumblr.com/post/619554371780460544  
> https://randomshitandall.tumblr.com/post/625705166961885184/nothing-more-than-hot-leaf-juice-we-dont-talk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Azula doesn't remember a lot of things, and there are things she's working hard to learn to forget. Innocence, for one, and what playing with Zuko near the turtleduck ponds is like.

Once, when she was younger and the world was a threat to her instead of the other way around, Azula broke something important to father by accident and started crying.

She was four and her brother was six and they were in their Ember Island's beach house — back in the days Mother was still around and Father's ruthlessness crept in less blatantly, present but not fully validated by authority yet — and running around rooms, pretend fighting along the scenes of the play they had watched yesterday. Zuko wasn't a theater snob then, not enough to think it was a bad reenactment of the play and not enough to either rant or sulk about the bastardization of some ancient masterpiece he owned the three major classical versions in carefully tucked away scrolls, so he played along.

It was the final duel scene of Love Amongst the Dragons and they were all but dancing through the motions, twirling around each other, attacking and dodging with equal enthusiasm, using fists once their fire had yet to light either of their palms and bend to their will, and Azula moved forward to aim a high kick at him— then she crashed in a stand and sent the vase father had received from his grandfather after he had performed his first kata in front of the court to shatter in tiny pieces to the floor.

He didn't love her more then, hadn't placed her in his right hand and called her a prodigy, nestled the crown on her head and named her his one worthy heir. She hadn't bended her blue flames, hadn't exceeded her brother and expectations, hadn't proved her worth yet, hadn't shown him she was special, so he held both of his children in the same regard and punished them equally.

All in all, Azula was rightfully terrified. His voice boomed from his office and his steps announced his way towards the living room loudly. Her watery eyes locked gaze with her brother's wide ones, and their horror was the same ( _Mother wasn't home, Mother wasn't home, Mother once meant safety and she wasn't home )_ , until her brother set his jaw and steeled his eyes with one measured breath. She didn't understand why until Father was in the room and his eyes were in the broken pieces of his relique and his anger engulfed the room as his voice rose like thunder. Her brother took another breath, Azula took a step back ( _he would tell on her, he would tell on her, he would tell on her, he would—_ ) and readied herself, either for a beating or for a burn.

Zuko stepped forward ( _he would tell on her_ ), bowed his head ( _he would tell on her_ ), and kneeled ( _what was he doing?_ ) to ask Father for forgiveness ( _father never granted forgiveness, not once_ ).

Even when Ozai's hand struck his cheek with such force that her brother's body hit the sofa to their left, not even when he cried out in pain, not even when Father added feet to the work he was doing with fists, not even when his lip started to bleed, did he tell on her.

Zuko took the fall that was meant for her.

She cried more and more until father told her to stop it least she wanted to end like her brother; she swallowed her tears and stifled her sobs and feared her father ( _that was before, when she thought love and fear were different things, and not intricate, necessary to keep people close_ ). He ordered his son to get up and to gather himself, stay on his rooms and to not let his mother come to him about this, to _take his punishment_ _with honour._ Zuko did; stood up, limped to the bathroom, wiped the blood from his face and remained on his room as Azula sat, still as rock, silent as the dead until Mother came back home.

Later that night she crept into her brother's room and apologized to Zuko in the dark, sniffling pathetically and trying not to cry. Zuko smiled and said it was okay. He always smiled then, like it was easy, even when she knew it wasn't. He opened his arms and she crawled into his hold until she was sat in his lap and he was hugging her like he could protect her from the world in the same way he protected her from father.

“It's okay to cry, Lala.” He coaxes her, but his smile is dented where his father split his lip and his voice sounds hoarse from the crying and pleading; and she tries not to see the bruise on his jaw in the dark, tries not to remember what her brother's screams sound like, tries not to think about how every time he squirmed away from their father's reach, he was dragging himself and Ozai's attention away from her, pressed into a wall and sobbing. “I won't tell father, you know that.”

She cried like she did the day she was born; he held her and calmed her like he did that day and like he would probably have done all his life if he was allowed to; but that was before Azula's first flame.

The first time a flame bursts into life on her palm it's tiny, flickering and orange, and Azula is on the courtyard with Mai and Ty Lee, practising her katas as the others practice their own skills (Mai and her knives, Ty Lee and her close combat). She blinks at the small fire cradled in her hands like a Grey Owl-Racoon for the longest time before she widened them and pulled back in surprise, taking in a breath that made the flame die out slightly before she let out a small sound of excitement.

Both of her friends turned their faces towards her then, and Ty Lee let out a shriek significantly higher if excitement than the little exclamation she had let out and suddenly a pair of skinny arms were wrapped around her shoulders and shaking her as her bubbly friend chanted ‘you did it, you did it, you did it!’ repeatedly ( _she elbowed_ _her away, more gentle than usual, said ‘stop it, you're gonna blow it!’ and denied that she was beaming just as much of her as she squeezed her friend's hand_ ) and even Mai walked to her, admiration and pride in her eyes where usually only boredom resided, and her expressionless face bore a small smile as she nodded at Azula and offered a ‘Took you look enough’ that was a vow of her confidence and ringed with congratulations.

Azula was all but vibrating with excitement and pride and her fire was _strong_ and _flickering_ and she was only _five_ and Father would surely be proud of it, Mother would warm up to her now she was this skilled and her brother— _her brother!_

“Zuko!” She cries out, earning a confused look from her friends before she lets out a joyful laughter and sidestepped her friends to run through the halls and toward her brother's training grounds, sending servants tripping over themselves to get out of the speeding princess' way, looking to one another as to say 'what was that blue thing on her palm?' and she wanted to scream 'my flame!' but first she had to tell someone more deserving. “Zuko!” Azula calls from the balcony from the second floor, startling Lu Ten and the instructor and her brother, but while the others look at her with confusion, the former turns to her with his face lighting up as he always did when he heard her voice, chuckling as he waved to her and she thrilled a little more before turning to the stairs. “ZuzuZuzuZuzuZuzuZuzuZuzu—” Each repetition of his name was one step until she was down the flight of the stairs and was running to her brother faster than the guards could try and stop her, or the fire-sage-appointed instructor could chide her. “Zuzu, I can firebend! I can firebend! Look!” She rises the flame to her brother's face, sees how they reflect on the gold of his eyes as they widen as hers had and jumps in place to let out some of her giddy joy. “I can firebend!”

He stares at her flame in wonder for a short-long while and leans closer, to admire the flame and the colour of it, the bright heat of it, reaches one hand as if to cup the flame in his own hand but pulls back hesitantly. Isn't then she remembers, she's _five_ and her brother is _seven_ and she shouldn't be able to firebend so young just as Zuzu shouldn't _not_ be able to firebend at _seven_ , and maybe showing her progress in front of his teacher and their cousin wasn't as exciting as she had thought it would be. Maybe he would be hurt, maybe he would be jealous, maybe he would be bitter about it, her flame flickers with the questions. Then he blinks, his focus shifting from her flame to her face, and Zuzu lights up with a smile.

It's all the warning she gets.

Suddenly her feet are not in the ground and her flame goes out so she can hold onto Zuko's arms as he twirls her around, laughing delightedly, his hands holding her safely up by the waist.

“Lala, you did it!” He says, spinning her around like crazy still, and Lu Ten is chuckling behind them while the Instructor keeps telling him to _put the princess down, think of the etiquette_ but Zuzu never cared about this, so when he stops spinning her is to hug her so tight she thinks he might be crushing some of her bones. “I'm so proud! And your fire is so strong already, that is awesome! We have to show it to Mom! Have you shown it to Dad yet?!”

“Not yet.” She says, shaking her head when he finally pulls back a little so she can breathe and he can look at her and her feet are in the ground. “I wanted to show you first.”

His smile grows more and he squeezes her hand before turning to Lu Ten and his teacher, bowing respectfully.

“I'm sorry, Master Haruo, but I will have to excuse myself early from training today.” Just like that they're running, he's tugging her by the hand and she's laughing even more and the instructor is barking for her brother to _come back this instant_ but Lu Ten is screaming ‘ _congratulations, 'Zula!’_ but all that matters is that Zuko is as ecstatic about her calmed as she is as he says. “Come on, we have to find father.”

When she's older and Sozin's comet has come and gone and her tears have run out and her throat is hoarse from screaming, there will be a thought amidst the madness that sounds like a girl that wasn't yet a weapon; _‘Maybe we shouldn't have shown it to father’._

He's in the gardens when they find him, drinking tea and discussing the war with Uncle. Zuko and her run to him side by side and slightly breathless. When Iroh smiles up at them, dropping the debate over Ba Sing Se invasion plans, Father's gaze follows his brother's and his brows crease at them. His lips turn downwards, as if he's getting ready to scold them, but Zuzu is faster.

“Dad, look at what Azula can do!”

They're in the gardens, flooded by the light of Agni, but when her tiny flame is presented to her father it is bright blue for a moment of two, it reflects brighter in his eyes because they darken with a feeling she can not name.

_Maybe they shouldn't have shown it to father, after all._

During dinner that evening, Zuko gushes on and on about her flame to mother, until the kind smile she often offers her brother turns towards her under the guidance of Zuzu's many compliments and her eyes crinkle at the sides with pride as she says something encouraging that is lost on her, because mom _smiled,_ a genuine smile that she usually reserves to turtleducks and her firstborn. Father cuts through their conversation to announce that, in the morning, she'd go through her katas under his supervision and though something cold and heavy rests in the bottom of her stomach, she bows respectfully and says the appropriate words about honor and when she looks up Father's eyes are dark but pleased, Mother's face is pinched with concern and Zuzu is smiling at her over his bowl of rice.

( _She can't quite remember when he stopped smiling at her; she_ can _remember going to bed, giddy with happiness and pride and plagued with a little anxiousness, and sleeping the best sleep she ever had_. )

Azula wakes early the next day, she gets dressed for training and Mother does her hair does her hair instead of a servant which does happen as a rule, but she is not fooled: Mother is not happy, she's worried. Azula doesn't know why. Father is waiting her outside her room, he ignores her bow and doesn't return her good morning, levels a gaze at Mother over her head before guiding Azula to the training grounds with a hand on her back that keeps pushing her forward and makes her small legs have to work twice as hard to keep up with him. Her whole body works works five time as fast to keep up with him during training, to deliver when he demands and to exceed when his silent disappointment fills the air after a failure until she is repeating the kata they're working on perfectly, precisely, natural and easy as breathing, at which point he says they're done for the day with a nod and sends her away to go about the rest of her day.

It becomes routine: he choses a kata, she masters it, he tells her to go and she comes back the next morning.

Azula progresses faster and faster, her fire grows more confident and Father looks more and more pleased. The possibility that if she excels, just enough he might smile (like Zuko does, might hug her like Zuko does, might love her like Zuko does, might protect her instead of punishing her) crosses her mind. Azula takes a deep breath and her next blast of flames is grand enough to accidentally light the three on the other side of the courtyard on fire.

( _Mother chides her for it later in the night, warns her to be careful, but, right now, Father_ almost _smiles at the charred wood_ ).

Azula doesn't know when she stops interacting with her brother, doesn't remember when their father disdain for him began to show though his neglect or when her mother disapproval of Ozai's behavior turned into constant chiding of Azula herself. 

One of those afternoons, when she was six, Father calls her when she's performing the Roaring Inferno set she had been so very nervous to start ( _which had been silly, because she was doing just fine with it, as always_ ), acclimating herself with more agressive forms that required full-handed moves instead of the two-fingers targeted flames she had become proficient with. Azula is confused, because she did nothing wrong, she's been working the kata to perfection and Father never cuts their trainings short no matter how well she performs in them or how pleased he is.

“I only mean to talk.” He clarifies, in the level tone he uses with Grandfather and Uncle and that she has come to associate with his political conversations; he's being _diplomatic_ , like Mai said.

Father extends his hand to the ground by his right, and she sits obediently, her gaze following his to the mountains that surround Caldera.

“The succession line to the throne is based on birthright.” He begins. “I see it as traditionalist idiocy. One should earn their throne, only the best of Agni's descendents should rule out nation, so their skill and power will never be questioned.” It is then that he fixes his gaze on her, fleeting as it is. “But birthright works against us both, Azula. My brother is a military legend but isn't fit to rule a country, yours isn't even able to master a flame, and yet we are placed behind them for being younger.”

“I could teach Zuko how to firebend.” She offers, in that childish naivety she would lose by the age of seven, excited to get to train with her brother as well.

“No.” Her father voice is hard as he cuts down her hopes, and she blinks confused once she knows she cannot flinch away, but he doesn't bother looking back at her again. “It is better for you if he never firebends at all. He's like Iroh and you're like me. The moment he creates a flame, it'll be a competition of who will survive to snatch the crown. You'll never be safe until you win and he loses.”

“But we're not the heirs of the throne. Prince Iroh is, and then Lu Ten.”

It's the first she sees him smile; it's cruel and sharp and cold and she thinks of knives.

“As I said, my brother doesn't have the crown yet."

She remembers seeing Zuko in his training grounds for hours on end, even when there were no instructors to teach him, working from Agni's rise in the skies to his setting, putting his all into it. She remembers the comments father makes that send him into tears, that beat his self worth to the ground, diminishes him as he sings her praises, remembers that sentence ‘born lucky, lucky to be born’. She remembers wanting to help him with it, but father had told him that her brother's first flame had to be of his own merit and had reinforced in the training grounds the same lesson of last time. If Zuko wasn't incapable, he was a danger; if he stood a chance to undermine her, she would have to strike him down.

Azula doesn't take any falls for him; not once, not even when it wouldn't put her in danger to do so.

She remembers being in the shadows of the balcony when her brother manages a flame to his palm, remembers he didn't gasp or smile or laugh or went running to show her; he fell to his knees and cried, and it sounded somewhat relieved, as he cradled the orange flame closer to his chest.

He shouldn't have been.

Father doesn't care about his flame safe for the one warning glare he fixed his daughter with. Mother hugs him and kisses his forehead, tells him how she's proud. Azula tries to smile over her bowl of rice at him, but Father is always watching nowadays, like a hawk.

Azula could not risk taking a fall for him. If he was wiser, he wouldn't have taken any for her either.

It's a liability either way; if he had been a non-bender they'd have both been somewhat safe, if he was useless she could have kept her brother, but now this will be a competition.

_****_

Azula burns through her basic forms into advanced techniques, and when something blue and wild leaves her fingertips as she vibrates with the buzzing of her thoughts, someone declares her the youngest bender to master cold fire.

She doesn't know what that means then. Father's eyes darken more and he smiles. She's a step closer to winning, a step closer to being safe.

( _Azula thinks of that and only that and learns not to care what it will mean for her brother to lose._ )

_****_

They're playing tag on the garden when the scroll arrives.

Father had been shut off in the War Council since early morning and Mother came to collect her for the day; she had been most displeased about the prospect of a whole day of scoldings and disapproving looks until she leaves the room and finds Zuko there, waiting with barely hidden delight. It infects her, like weakness does, but father is not here to scold her and mother was always so very indulgent of it Zuko that she wouldn't begrudge her the same. Ursa walks behind them, a clear break of protocol, and the siblings walk side by side ahead, only a few centimeters apart of each other and mastering their smiles into the royally neutral expressions to no avail. It almost feels like the day before she broke father's relique, when he had taken them for a walk and Zuko had ran ahead while she chased after him, giggling.

“I've missed you.” He says first, low so none of the adults around them can hear them. Azula smiles, because that's the sort of thing Zuko brings out on her.

“Me too.” She replies, and it's honest because she _does_ misses him and Mai and Ty Lee, before bumping her shoulder on his as the palace bleeds out in the lush green of Mother's favorite garden.

Zuzu looks at her with that beaming pride of his and runs ahead. He's stupid, she decides, before running after him with a burst of laughter.

Ursa stays by the water fountain, back turned to them and Azula doesn't mind, because while the adults are ignoring them, they get to be kids and she didn't know she had been itching for this sort of easy interaction that didn't require her to prove herself or to watch herself. Still, the Fire Sage in his white robes still comes and delivers the scroll to Mother with a respectful bow; they keep playing, but they are quieter now. They quieten all together when mother stands and turns to them, scrolls still in her hands. Zuko steps closer, but Azula stays back. These won't be good news, she knows it, and mother tells them cousin didn't survive the war.

Azula tells herself mourning is useless. Cousin cousin was not safe, cousin didn't play the game right and he lost and he died for it. It's how this goes, Father told her.

He will certainly be pleased with this development.

It's obvious Zuko tells himself no such thing, though, as his shoulders slump and he deflates of the former joy. He was always closer to Lu Ten. Lu Ten was patient and kind and funny and he took the time to drill with her brother every morning he was in the palace, go through every kata and help him strengthen his flame.

They walk back into the palace, quiet and their faces truly neutral this time, with mother ahead and them behind, as dictated by the protocol, and the war council was dismissed by the Fire Lord upon hearing the news of Ba Sing Se.

“Don't ever let dad send you to war if you can help it.” Her brother mumbles, so low she could have missed, but his eyes are looking at her sideways, as if he's willing her into a promise. “I don't want to lose you too.”

It's a sweet sentiment, and naive too, but that's just how Zuko is.

She offers a hand towards him and he holds onto it, squeezes gently; it's more reassuring to him than her saying that if she went to war, her enemies would tremble at the sight of her instead of dealing her a killing blow.

_****_

It's been a week that father hasn't trained with her, a week in which mother is also busy readying things for the return of a mourning Crown Prince in order to relieve the Fire Lord of some of his burdens and as such, the siblings are left with each other; it’s not a good idea, seeing as they terrorize the cook and climb up to the roof and sneak all the way up the Fire Sage’s tower to look over Caldera City. They could rule the world like this, she thinks, if only Zuko would stop looking at her as if he expected her to push him past this window, like he doesn’t fully know her anymore, only to follow insecurity with a smile, like he doesn’t know her but he wants to. Eventually the guards catch up to them, as was inevitable, and they are confined to a room.

Zuko asks if she wants to train with him, but father forbade her, so she says no. They play for a while, but her good mood swiftly takes an ill turn now that they are stuck inside a room that’s not even interesting and Zuko knows better than to press her in a state like this, so he lets her be and hopes that space is enough to let her cool down.

It's not, but it's somewhat touching that he tried.

She sits on the chair and watches him with carefully cultivated detachment; she has to stop doing this kinds of things, forgetting Father’s lessons every time there’s half a chance to play with her brother as if they are peasant children. Zuko should look apprehensive to be around her when they’re too high and too close to windows, she should consider pushing him from the window.

He's playing with that stupid dagger, _Uncle's_ dagger, Uncle who's coming back home without a victory and without a son. It's as inviting of an opening as father will ever have and she's not stupid to think he isn't working an angle out of this, but why leave her out? She doesn't snap at Zuko but she does insult his knife-wielding and watches as he blushes and overcompensates with faux confidence what is a lack of skill.

“By the way, Uncle is coming home.”

“Does that mean we won the war?"

Zuko is going to die like Lu Ten if he keeps not seeing a palm in front of his face. Maybe it will be better: she will be safe, she will win and she won't have to fight, slay him down in less than honourable methods.

“He's probably just sad his only kid is gone. Forever."

He looks sad for his death; she doesn't feel sad for her cousin. He looks disappointed at her; she feels a little sad for that.

 _I don't want to lose you too_.

He's so stupid. Maybe it will be better: she will be safe, she will win and she won't have to fight, slay him down with less than honorable methods.

Mother walks in before she can apologize, and that's as good of a sign as any that maybe she shouldn't apologise after all. Zuko goes running when Mother says Father requested an audience with Grandfather, but Azula take her time to mock her use of titles. It's clear Father will make a move anytime now and Grandfather won't be using that title for long when he does. She is told to be quiet, and storms past her mother without bothering to hear anything else as she tries to catch up with Zuzu. She is right, and Mother doesn't know it, so, really, Azula is the smarter one.

( _‘What is wrong with that child?’ still follows her as she runs, almost catching up to her and biting her heels. She tells herself she outran the words, so they can't affect her._ )

_**** _

They sit in front of Grandfather in their finer clothes. Father asks Zuko a simple question, and he falters, so Azula swoops in. Father tells her she is correct and she smiles, preens under the praise; he asks her to perform the new move they had perfected last week and that she had been told to practice every morning, by herself, so she stands and does. It's muscle memory, easy like breathing, and she sees Father smile so she give sit her all.  
He calls her a prodigy like Grandfather; it's a stroke of both egos, but she takes her share of praise either way.

She goes back to sit by Zuko.

“You’ll never catch up.” She whispers a tease, smiles at her own joke, but he's not smiling anymore, isn't royally neutral either, he looks sad and small and hunched and before she can do anything to catch his attention, he's getting up and trying to prove himself too.  
Father lips turn down wards, Azula doesn’t sigh but it’s a close call. This is why she and Zuko can’t have nice things, he has no control. It's embarrassing to see him fail like this: trying his best and falling to the ground at every try, but it's also gratifying. He's not a threat in the slightest, she has no reason to worry (the thought that he would never smile at her disgrace comes and it’s easily batted away).

Zuko crumbles, Mother coddles him (and Azula finally frowns because her brother will never learn if Mother keeps this up, they’d both be better off without her praises of weakness or the gentle manner she cups Zuzu’s face), Grandfather loses his patience and dismisses them all, but Father stays. Mother walks ahead of them, which is good because, for one, she’s following protocol, and for two, her back is to them. Zuko’s shoulders are slumped and the fact he rejoiced in his failure and the fact it was her attempts on being playful that landed him there finally catch up to her; they were playing in the gardens barely two days ago and she wants to cheer him up as she did then. She runs towards him and grabs his arm, tugs him to the left, to the curtains by the door where they can stay hidden and hear what the grown ups don1t want them to: it’s fun and it’s useful. She’ll be killing two birds with one stone.

“What are you-?” He begins to ask, and of course he’s too loud, but she’s smiling and undeterred and she shushes him as they run behind the maroon curtains, to a spot where they can see both father and grandfather. Zuko looks at her as if she’s crazy, but she only tilts her head to the curtains so deviously he smiles faintly, even if a little uneasily and cracks the fabric slightly so they can both lean closer and watch.

Father makes his move, and she keep smiling, because they’re a few moves from winning. She keeps smiling even when Grandfather rage grows, reflected by the flames around his throne because no matter the punishment grandfather deals him, when Uncle Iroh returns from war, sad and mopey and crying, he will see who is the superior son and will crown father his heir.

She’s so thrilled she doesn’t notice how frightened her older brother gets up until the Fire Lord shouts and his fire flares so high he falls back on his ass in fear. Her lips twitch into disappointment when he leaves, running away like a scared weasel-cat.

She turns back to look, and the frown melts into another grin.

_**** _

Azula was always too good at living up too other's expectations.

Father thought she was a prodigy, Mother thought she was a monster, Grandfather thought she was smart, Uncle thought she was crazy. She never disappointed.

Father makes a move to win, but Grandfather is too loyal, values Uncle too much and Uncle has just lost his only child. He berates father and calls for Zuko's death.  
That's what it means for him to lose, she realizes and maybe it was for the best that he left before this. Maybe it’s for the best, fully, because if he’s dead, she’s the only heir, father winning or not.

Still, she warns him, late at night when he’s in bed and father won’t see them, won't scold her for forgetting he's the bane to her glorious path but Zuzu doesn't believe her. He called her a liar every time she said something he didn't want to hear ( _eyes watery with tears and face hurt in that confused way as if he couldn't understand why she liked to hurt him now when she used to spend her time with him playing tag or exploring the palace, when she was comforting him for their cousin's death_ ). His words stung a little more than the others', but she never disappointed, so she became that too.

She’s led away by her mother, her thin fingers wrapped around her wrist and promises of a less than friendly talk in her tone and face. Her brother lays back in his bed and tells himself she’s a liar.

If he dies, she tells herself she won’t feel that bad about it.

Her brother survives. She is not relieved for it.

Her father is appointed heir at Azulon's deathbed before Uncle Iroh even sets foot in Caldera.

Mother has either vanished or been vanished, probably by Father and with no lack of ties to Grandfather's suspicious death and to the fact her brother is alive.

Zuko is alive, but he is alone.

Azula flicks his dagger in her hand and walks away; he is still heir apparent but she all but won already.

( _She will not admit that she is alone too_ ).


	2. that which makes monsters

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There are reasons Azula's face has remained smooth and untouched.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Full disclosure: I needed an extra chapter just to take my time with season 2 Azula instead of cramming the gap between the ages of 11 and 14 with only Ozai around her with my girl chasing the Avatar, finding some friends, threatening her borther and fucking shit up.
> 
> I hope it didn't undermine this chapter tho and that you enjoy the read!

Zuko is a crybaby.

Azula knows that and has known it for some time too, she’s grown up side by side with him and seen him cry for a variety of stupid reasons: when someone hurt his feelings, when he fell from heights, when he was rejected by turtleducks, for dad telling him that he was lucky to be born, for Grandfather’s funeral, Mother’s disappearance and that one time she had told him she’d have rather be an only child than being his sister. He has too much heart (which mother was so very generous in tending to until it grew five times in size and could be used against him from a mile away) and too little mind to hide.

Zuko is a crybaby, but he’s not stupid; his sadness and his vulnerability and the concepts of trust and compassion mother instilled in him drain away and anger and a necessity to prove himself fill those voids.

It’s just as pointless, but at least he’s learning.

He didn’t learn, Zuzu never learns. Thinking otherwise is just wishful thinking, and she should have known better than to slip into foolish thoughts.

They barely talk nowadays, have barely talked since that afternoon before the scroll about Lu Ten’s death, when she was eight and he was ten and Mother was still here to look down at Azula, disappointed but with no real anger behind her eyes. One would have thought her brother would get better without Mother at his shoulder, whispering all the wrong things and making him weak in all the right ways (one would almost think she’s plotting to get Azula on the throne, making her brother so defenseless), but at her absence, Uncle stepped up to such a task.

Of course, she couldn’t even trust him to be as careful as mother, optimistic as fat and fun-loving their tea-obsessed Uncle to be as careful as Mother was, not when he had no reason to be as frightened of his little brother as she had had reasons to be terrified of her husband. He lets Zuko fosters compassion at the heart of Father’s teachings and doesn’t tell him to hide it.

Azula didn’t stray, training as hard as he could for as long as she could, under father and the ages and any firebender worth courtly recognition. Father was never displeased, never disappointed, never anything less than pleased with the occasional impressed lift of his brows. He loves her, she’s sure, like Mother never did and like he didn’t love Zuko. If he loved her, she was safe. If he loved her, it’s because she was worth it. If she feared him, it was only natural: it was what it took to being respected.

Zuko is a crybaby with a target in the shape of a compassionate heart ready to be shot and Uncle has no sense of danger whatsoever. Her brother asks to be let in the War Council and Uncle caves in and Azula walks towards the front row of an Agni Kai they all know her brother won’t win.

Zuko is a crybaby. He kneels in front of father and asks for forgiveness for his wrongdoings, because he has not learned a single thing since she was five and he was seven and thinks this might work if he just bows low enough, and he’s crying when he does it.

He’s crying as he keeps his head low, he’s crying when his father walks to him, he’s crying as father tugs his head back by his topknot and crying when father raises his hand as if to slap him across the face, only to hold a fist in front of his left eye.

Her and Zhao watch, Uncle looks away.

Zuko is a crybaby but he screams when Father burns his face. She’s won and she didn’t even have to do anything; Zuko pushed himself to this spot and Father was waiting for an excuse for the longest of times. He screams until his voice is hoarse and unrecognizable to her, until his consciousness slips away, until his eyes roll back into his skull and Father lets go of his hair to let his limp body fall back: face half-smooth and remarkably like hers and half-mangled beyond repair. When Zuko’s body hits the floor, it sounds just like it did when father backhanded him against the couch of Ember Island’s beach house. The memory startles her into drawing in a sharp breath.

It’s only then that the smell of burned flesh and singed hair hits her full. She doesn’t stop smiling because Father turns to her, his eyes cunning and pleased and she knows he wants her to be equally pleased in return, he’s trained her for this since she was six.

‘I cleared the way for you’, he’s saying.

It just might be his way to show affection.

She puffs her chest with pride.

She pretends very hard she’s not a little terrified of him.

When night fell, Azula downed a black cloak and made her way out of the castle through the shadows with some help from Mai and Ty Lee. Father didn’t even allow for him to be treated within the palace’s walls; barely provided for him to be treated at all, Uncle’s the one ordering healers into the small war boat he managed to acquire in such a short time to get them out of Fire Nation territory as soon as they could, Uncle with his face pinched with anger and disgust and grief and so strongly protective of Zuko he had carried him himself towards the docks.

She cannot resent him for that.

She sneaks into the ship just short of midnight, against splicit orders to not do so; it was okay as long as she was not caught (and she never was). There are only two guards outside, and they’re not much focused at keeping people from getting in as they’re focused on preventing the exiled prince from leaving the ship, so they play cards and drink sake and talk loudly about how this is the most uncomfortable situation they had ever had to deal with.

As she makes her ways through the halls of iron, she wonders where is Uncle, exactly? Probably trying to find people to form a crew, people who are loyal and don't ask too many questions.

Her feet won't quite obey her when she stands outside Zuko's door. She doesn't want to look, like she hadn't much looked at what was left of his face, eyes trailed to her father. Azula is not quite sure she wants to see what Father is capable of, what he expects her to be capable of, but she opens the steel door and forces her way inside, one step after the other, heavy and dragged and unwilling, but she was the master of her body, not _her fear_.

The left side of his face is wrapped in so many bandages his head leans heavy to the left. There are layers over layers, like his face had grown and deformed itself into a giant mole instead of being burned into a crisp, and it must look worse than it really is, with all that fussing about one wound ( _she really hopes it looks worse than it is_ ).

He groans like a spirit monster of the scary tales peasants tell each other. Zuko's forehead is damp with sweat and so is his hair and he shivers under the too-thin blankets.

He looks half dead already.

The smell of sickness is strong and she notices the bucket by his bed when she catches the whiff of vomit in the air, amidst it all. She kneels by his side with the fortitude of a daughter of Agni, because if she's any less in this moment she will never again manage to live in that palace without waiting for a flaming fist to her eye or to be disappeared like mother was, and Azula is not mastered by fear, she masters it.

“Mom?” He groans, either having delusions from the pain or from the medicine shoved down his throat to dull it.

“Not quite.” She offers back, only slightly bitter about the words. Azula came all this way, took all these risks, and he thinks she's Ursa. Typical, ungrateful Zuzu.

He blinks, slow and confused and with hazy eyes, probably not even fully aware of this conversation and high with all the sleep-poppy milk in his system.

“What happened?”

“You lost.” Azula says, harsher than she means to sound but ultimately as direct about the matter as she aims to be with all else. “The Fire Lord banished you.”

He widens his eyes (well, _eye_ ) as if the memories caught up with him and the panic it sets over him is so grand he's struggling to sit up, to get up, even though he's quite clearly not capable of even raising his head from the floor and having it stay upright. Azula's hand rests on his chest, ready to push him back down on the mattress if she needs to, but he's so weak and it's so easy to hold him back because of it. He crumbles against her shoulder, his fingers dig on the arm keeping him from falling from the bed.

“We have to get Azula. We have to take Azula, we can’t leave her alone with him.” He mumbles, delirious and frantic, and talking so fast she can’t make out individual words, much less string them into coherent sentences. It doesn’t matter, because his breathing is all over the place and she tries to coax him into a stable breathing pattern until he’s less prone to having a heart attack and instead barely holding back tears. “Mom, he burned half of my face off for not wanting to fight him.” The words hang above them, the first either have admitted what happened out loud. “What is he going to do if Azula displeases him?”

The etiquette tutors they had from the young age of three were very good in how they went about in scaring the lessons into them, and the neutral face of royally was one such lesson. ‘Imagine the Great Koh is in front of you at all times and keep your composure unless you wish to spend a face-less life’. She keeps that lesson close to her chest now as she gives a gentle squeeze to her brother’s shoulders and answers in the tone Mother would have used once, long ago.

“Don't worry about Azula, she will be fine.”

“I don't want to leave her alone.” 

“She will be fine, Zuko.” She knows when to keep her mouth shut. “Go to sleep.”

“The tears sting.” He says unhappily, but the pain washes over him and pulls him into unconsciousness.

Zuko’s a crybaby and father went to great pains to make sure that that too hurt him, still he worried about her, like he didn’t have his own survival to look after.

He’s an idiot.

He had sailed off before sunrise, still unconscious.

Azula stayed in the palace, elevated to her father's right hand.

She pulls her strings. They are not many yet, but they are strings nevertheless.

The 41st doesn’t die.

Zuko’s scar is not in vain.

Father sends Mai and Ty Lee away four days later.

She didn’t do anything wrong, they didn’t do anything wrong, yet they are stripped from her like dolls are stripped from misbehaving children. She doesn’t understand what she’s being punished for, but she doesn’t talk back and she doesn’t ask him for reasons, because her face is smooth and her skin unburnt and she did not lie when she said she knew how to keep her mouth shut.

‘You’re too close to those girls’, Father says eventually, ‘Having allies is good, but you must be able to stand alone. Don’t let trust cripple you’.

Azula bows her head, accepts his advise and acclimatizes to loneliness.

She burns through her basic forms into advanced techniques, chokes everything and twists them just the right way for her fire to burn hotter and hotter, until the orange flame her brother had smiled when presented burned blue, and Father’s eyes darkened with something more bitter than pride. No one has had blue flames in two centuries and if she does now, mastered under two fingers and sheer cold-blooded control, so she makes sure she’s known for it.

When something else blue and wild leaves her fingertips as she vibrates with the buzzing of her thoughts, she’s declared the youngest bender to master cold fire.

She makes sure she’s known for that too.

Sometimes, after she tied her hair back into the topknot and before she put on make-up, she would stare at the mirror and bring a hand up to cover one of her eyes (the one father has burned on him, the one so heavily wrapped that it weighted his head to a side) and allows herself to think that there’s a person in front of her instead of a mirror.

They always looked so much alike, too much like mother.

It was the only way she’d let herself cry, picturing it was Zuko crying, like he did with his first flame and like he did on his knees in front of father and how he struggled not to do on that ship because it hurt, as if the weakness was his and not hers.

_It’s okay to cry, Lala. I won’t tell father, you know that._

It was almost comforting.

Then she would lower her hand, reveal immaculate skin and remember what comfort earned you in the royal court. 

Father brew fear and respect on the hearts of man from behind his wall of flames, but Azula was not Fire Lord, she was a Princess and a girl, a young girl with a vanished mother and a banished brother, and nothing but her father's decree that she was his heir to back up any form of authority she might yield. Azula decided quickly, after one too many bows that were just low enough to be respectful under protocol's standard but not nearly as respectful as the ones they scurried to father, so low their foreheads almost touched ground.

She begins with small steps: with the men in gaudy suits with fancy titles that think she does not belong in war meetings, only a sit lower than father but presiding over them and their decade of service nevertheless. Most of the Council Members think so, she knows - she’s elven and small, even if he fingers lick with blue flames and bring lightening in existence more masterfully than anyone has ever done before her, and the only girl in this room even though women are allowed in Military ranks - but only one of them is ever stupid enough to voice his thoughts aloud, to Father and in front of her.

The Fire Lord stands by his decision, declares she’s to stay and little else before moving along to ask about the troops being trained to take the port north-east at the Earth Kingdom to solidify their hold on the colonies, but Azula makes a show of narrowing her eyes calculatingly at General Wei in full view of all those smart enough to watch.

Wei doesn’t take the threat for what it is.

Barely a week later a series of unfortunate accidents befall his family in quick succession, his considerable wealth dwindles until it’s almost decimated, he falls from grace in the military after one too many failures are pointed out to her Father before he can weaken another battalion, his social standing is barely being kept by the skin of his teeth when he leaves the palace at night.

On the next War Council, Azula deliberately arrives a little later than everyone else and passes by the pointedly empty seat Wei used to occupy with a smirk before sitting at her spot, near Father.

It was a test, she knows, to prove herself to him and to impose herself on them: an eleven year old that could ruin a noble in six days, that did not depend of her Father to defend herself when she could do so herself.

Azula is twelve when she learns to pick her battles.

She could easily ruin this man, the whole room knows it, but instead she’s polite and well-mannered and amused herself seeing him do all the work for her as paranoia and fear consume him, looking for hits and attacks she doesn’t land and doesn’t bother planning for.

There is a handful of things she knows about the fool in too-new Captain uniform in front of her, and it’s the handful of information that matter: his name is Yi and he has no significant family connections apart from a merchant uncle and two graves for his parents in the outskirts of a patch of a blacksmithing district that makes swords for the army. There’s not a drop of noble blood to him, and, surrounded by noble sons and daughters and standing in front of the Princess of the Fire Nation that comes congratulate him in his newest achievement, he must feel like a liar or an actor who forgot his lines, a misplaced clay vase in between lines of finery.

She knows the man is twenty six and rising through ranks with bold and reckless strokes, knows that he’s pale and that his eyes are brown and that he’s idealistic in that stupid way that gets people killed in the field, knows he’s stubborn enough to live despite it all and knows he’s honor-driven to a fault if he believes he owes loyalty. Above all else, she knows he’s greedy, desperate to prove himself.

All wonderful and useful traits if she pockets him, but all of them still don’t make the wager worth it - or wouldn’t, if she didn’t know one thing more:

“Your Commander officer is Major Wang Xiu, is it not?” She asks, voice sweet and face deceptively curious, and drinks in the grimace to his face as she turns away slightly.

“Yes, Your Highness.”

She could smile at the amount of resentment in his voice.

Wang Xiu was one of Grandfather’s most trusted officers once, a decade younger than Azulon had been and twice as many older than father, and very outspoken on the matter that Ozai was not meant for the throne with his lack of military accomplishments and the suspicious deaths of his nephew and father. He was too brave to step down and cower in an ancient home of his own, away from the new Fire Lord’s wrath, and too damn smart to let himself be dealt with like others were (poison, daggers, tragic boat accidents), leaving Father to seethe with anger and Azula to prove her worth yet again.

“I take it you don’t hold him in high esteem?”

“Your Highness, I would never-” He starts, voice heavy with panic, his back straightens and she sees his brain trying to come up with excuses. She raises a placating hand to spare herself boredom and chuckled her next words to ease his nerves:

“No need to apologize. I don’t hold many of my Father’s generals in high esteem either.”

He looks taken aback for a moment, than his face softens in surprise and breaks into an awkward smile; if Azula doesn’t breathe in as sharply as she wants to, she has etiquette teacher Han to thank. His smile is almost familiar in her nostalgia, would be more if he had golden eyes and was eleven years younger. A hand waves to her left, to the doors, duty-bound. 

“Would you like to see the Gardens with me, Captain Yi?”

They are closest to the garden with the turtleduck pond, she knows, but Azula finds herself unwilling to taint the one patch of grass that was used as a refugee for innocence in Caldera, so she takes a longer walk and guides him to Mother’s. They are followed by servants, two that rush ahead of them to light torches and illuminate their path against the setting sun’s fading glow, and six others that are always seven steps behind her and have their faces permanently turned down wards, in some ways they are smarter than most nobles and infinitely smarter than this peasant boy in soldier robes will ever be.

“What is it that you find so abhorrent about the old general, then?” She prompts when they’re by Mother’s prized fire lilies, desecrates her peaceful corner with the poison she weaves between words.

“He seems unwilling to win this fight.” The boy lets out as if he had been waiting to spill frustration in the air for years, without the risk of a blade under his chin to cut his throat or daring a little too much for his station. He thinks he's safe here, surrounded by plants and with a young girl playing hostess to him. Yi's an idiot, but at least a useful one. “He’s unassertive and most times, his disrespect to the Crown’s order border on traitorous behavior! He’s going to drag us down with him one of these days, and I did not get where I am taking falls for those who did not know better.”

Azula can understand that, at least, and appreciate the absence of loyalty to misconstrue, makes it easier to put her small plan in motion:

“Tell me, Captain, would you like to be a Commander?”

By the end of the month, General Wang Xiu dies an unfortunate death when his guards fail to protect him from an attack of military traitors who, in their turn, were slain by brave Captain Li as he sought to avenge his fallen superior. Father issues a mourning period out of formality and respect for the late General’s service and Azula sends a messager hawk sent from the outskirts of Caldera, calling him back to the Capital to obtain his prize.

It’s all very unfortunate, really, when Yi dies in his ship six days later from untreated wounds and a dose of the poison grandfather tasted in his wine.

Father smiles at her appreciatively and promotes Zhao as he had planned. 

A year later, he sends her away to Ember Island to host a diplomatic meeting that she’s not invited to. She tries, nevertheless to argue her case: surely, he wouldn't sideline her like a child now, when she had molded herself to be an extent of his will and power, when they've accomplished so much together, if he could just _trust_ her (that was the wrong word), give her a chance and put those people in their places like he did to his counselors back in the Council years ago, she can prove herself to be worthy.

His answer is still no, and, in rage, her voice lifts higher than it should when she says _‘you can't treat me like this!’_. The world freezes around them, and she realizes she has screamed.

“I am being very generous allowing you your childish tantrum and blatant disrespect, Princess Azula. Do not take my generosity as certain. You would do well to remember your brother.”

There are only so many things Azula can prove herself through, and being a twelve year old girl outweighs all other deeds when the most intimidating person in the room must be the Fire Lord and the Fire Lord alone.

Above all else, the Fire Lord's command outweighs any argument she may have to her own case.

There's a reason Azula is where she is, why her flames are blue and her face intact; she bows her head and accepts his will.

It’s only for three days, and she spends them mostly practicing under Lo and Li, holing herself up in her designated room after Agni bows out of the sky for the day to sleep or glaring at the waves during night time when she can't. In all she does and with all she has, Azula pointedly avoids looking in the direction of their summer house.

After considerable coaxing from the elder twins, the Princess of the Fire Nation is taken to watch a play in the small excuse for a downtown they have in this cursed Island on the last night there.I

It's the time of the year for The Ember Island Players' yearly production of Love Amongst The Dragons.

Zuko was right.

They butcher it.

  


When she's fourteen, she kneels in front of her father and his throne of flames like she did a thousand times before.

He tells her Uncle Iroh is a traitor and that her brother is a failure, and neither of those statements is a surprise. Azula knows that, in the North, the Siege failed and Zhao and an unnecessary number of their soldiers and ships have met their demise; she mourns none of them, albeit the ships and the soldiers lost were low for morale, but Zhao had dared to make an attempt against a descendent of Agni out of his own pride - whatever icy death befell him, he deserved it for attempting to end what even Father's hand couldn't. It probably will be one of her tasks at some point, but Azula will handle that when she's faced with it. She knows that the air nomad boy, twelve and bald and inexplicably _alive_ must have mastered the element of water by now, and stands a little closer to being a threat now, destroying an entire fleet with the aid of one spirit and some rudimentary bending technique.

Father gives her another task, her biggest yet, and then lets her roam free outside the palace walls, like a shirshu freed from it's collar and set loose to go after a trail.

The Avatar, she thinks, was her brother's task.

The thrill in her, she reflects a bit further, is from the chase and from the freedom and not for realising what the excuse of hunting the boy can allow her with no questions asked.

Azula requires a ship, ten times bigger than Zuko's had been, and boards it from the same spot in the dock he had, Lo and Li in toe and Mai and Ty Lee in her mind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading, comment if you feel like it and I hope I see you again soon, either in chapter 3 or the modern AU with Azula and Zuko finding their mom (with the obligatory side of Zukka) I should be posting by the end of the month!

**Author's Note:**

> The fact that we didn't get the Azula Redemption in Season 4 of ATLA because of that horrible atrocity of a movie is something I will hold to fuel my hate for Shyamalan until my dying days.


End file.
